Herald of Steel

Lord Parker did not object to Lord Macht's insistence that they leave the battlefield and sail as quickly as possible to Caira.

Given the circumstances, this was the only logical thing left to do.

But for the time being, the only thing that seemed to occupy Lord Parker's mind was the humiliation of tucking tail and running once again.

"Alexander! Achillas!" He thus uttered with extreme bitterness, each having a very different meaning.

Towards Alexander, it was bitterness over the loss.

While towards Achillas, it was the bitterness over not being able to save him.

And it was particularly the latter point that hounded the young lord the most as Lord Parker could not help but feel his heartache at the thought of his lover having to spend even more time with the hated enemy.

At this point, he even somewhat hated Lord Kite for he was the mastermind of the entire battle plan. And since the battle had failed, it stood to reason that the fault had to be also borne by him.

'I told Lord Kite that we should meet Alexander with the Margraves. If we had met them together, we would not be in such a mess! I could have even rescued Achillas!'

Suddenly Lord Parker even began to change the tune he had sung, wishing to dump all his fury onto the innocent man.

If Lord Macht could hear his thoughts, he would have certainly gravely disapproved, his opinion of Lord Parker falling to a new nadir.

He and Lord Kite might have had their differences, but as a proud warrior, he would never attack his opponents with such vileness.

But the black, giant did not and was rather far more concerned with escorting Lord Parker out of this death trap.

"My lord, hurry… the boat is ready! Let us set sail before the enemy can catch up!"

His loud and crisp order broke the dejected scion out of his morbid thoughts and caused him to lift his head up to look at the hastily moored large boats.

But to his sinking heart, Lord Parker found that there were only a few boats available for his and his men's escape, causing each to be filled to the brim with panicking men.

Now, Lord Parker had no shortage of ships. He had come here with around 25,000 men after all.

The shortage however came in the form of availability.

Due to the extremely short notice, most of the ships could not utilize the necessary crew to operate the ships.

In fact, given it was nearing dusk, most of the sailors had come offshore to cook their meals and finish their supper before light was lost.

They did not do it in their boats because it was a fire hazard that they always liked to avoid as well as many of their supplies being stored in camp.

Plus, many of them simply wanted a change of scenery, feeling stuffed after having to stay in their rickety wooden dinghies for so long.

This however tragically left the ships woefully undermanned for the time being, thus when Lord Macht called for all ships to report to the foot of the hill upon facing Remus's attack, only a few were able to effectively respond.

And even those that came, many times were woefully undermanned, requiring them to take men from other vessels to make up the numbers, thus decreasing the number of sea worthy vessels even further.

All this meant that currently there was a small scale civil war going on between the fleeing men and servants as they tried to get onto the limited number of 'lifeboats', pushing and shoving each other like madmen to make way for themselves,

"Move! Let me through! I'm your commander!"

"Filthy slaves! *Bang*, out of the way! Go die somewhere else!"

"Don't our lives have no value just because we are slaves? Aghhh…. Move aside. I want to live! I want to live no matter what!"

"Look! They are here! The enemy is here! Hurry! Hurry! Set sail!

Set sail!"

In this chaos, many of the hot blooded soldiers were even not above using their weapons and shields to strike and hurt all those that stood in their way, brute forcing their way through onto the deck, thus leaving behind a bloody carnage behind.

But the slaves should also not be discounted here in this fight, as many of them used hidden kitchen knives and small daggers they picked up from fallen soldiers to backstab their way onto the vessels.

The entire thing was quite like a much more bloody version of fleeing the Titanic, one where men, women, and children were all equal.

Lord Macht was also not above using force to make way for his lord, vehemently barking out loud shouts to make way for him and his entourage,

"You idiots! How dare you get on this boat? This is reserved for the Lord and his lady! Scram you worthless bums!"

Lord Macht was properly incensed to see the boat he had just requisitioned and even left two men behind to guard to make sure nobody got on it was now crawling with panicking men, those two guards included.

Lord Macht's eyes blazed with immense anger at seeing such a breakdown of discipline.

But it seemed that the fear of death had overtaken even those two elite men and when they were confronted by a mass of alarmed men clamoring to get on the empty vessel, they flipped.

And who could really blame them?

What were two mere men realistically going to do against a tide numbering hundreds if not thousands?

If they tried to resist, they would be stomped to death by the marauding half mad men.

In that case, a far smarter move would be to just give in and join the other side, thus also securing a place in the 'lifeboat' for themselves in the process.

It was a win win.

It was just that Lord Macht planned to court martial the two for disobeying orders once he got back to Caira.

But for now, the giant man decided to leave it, and simply had his men push, shove, and even throw men overboard to make as much space as possible for Lord Parker.

And hearing the loud shouts and seeing the large, heavily armored group of soldiers approaching them, the rest of the squabbling men tried their best to give away, thus opening the way for Lord Parker.

"My lord, Quickly! Come to your quarters!"

Then once they were on, one of the bodyguards attempted to take Lord Parker to a secure room below deck, but that was easier said than done.

The entire ship was simply too jammed packed to in any way make way down.

Lord Parker and his entourage thus made do staying on top.

"Go! Raise the anchors and go! Hurry!"

And that was good enough, as no sooner they got aboard, Lord Macht let out this bark towards the captain.

He could see just as they had finished boarding, all the men that had just been cowered were once again rushing from behind, hoping to get a spot.

These desperadoes might have been willing to give up some space for Lord Parker, but that did not mean they were willing to let even a single piece of plank space go to waste.

Hence they cramped and shoved themselves into every nook and crannies they could fit themselves into, making the vessel dangerously overweight.

"Dammit! These foolish swines. Kill them! Kill them and then throw them aboard!" And seeing this, Lord Macht even angrily roared out this command, since he felt the boat was tilting dangerously to one side.

But as much as he wished to rectify this, Lord Macht and his men could not really massacre their way out of this one.

Even if one did not care about the ethical dilemma or the fact was they were too few and thus risked getting slaughtered themselves, once they bared their weapons, the panic and intense movements would likely capsize the ship even faster.

So Lord Macht could only hope and pray that the ship stayed its course while barking orders to have everybody stay still.

Unfortunately for Lord Macht, the gods would not listen to his prayers, as the sailing boat would be suddenly caught in a rapid current and hit by a heavy gale about a quarter of its way.

The former was a result of the rivers thawing from their winter hibernation, while the latter was due to an approaching storm.

For an over encumbered vessel, this was perhaps the worst of both worlds, and the already perilous journey now began to get deadly.

The whole thing began to dangerously swing back and forth like a pendulum, causing many to go overboard.

"My lord! Hold on to the ropes! Quickly!" While Lord Macht urgently shouted, finding himself also to be desperately clutching onto the riggings.

"Ahhh… Urghhhh… Mmmmm," But unfortunately that was very difficult to do as all the people were being thrown from side to side all at once.

So even if you managed to grab something, holding on to it was near impossible given you were going to be rammed by the weight of a few tonnes.

"No!" And that was exactly what happened as suddenly, during one fateful swing Lord Parker fell!

Let us say no to piracy! Don't take part in a crime! Don't patronize thieves!

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